Our Final Hours
by The Frozen Sock
Summary: the Kurzicks are desperately losing the war, and with reinforcements in short supply, who will deal the final blow?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Guild Wars, or the Kurzicks, or the Luxons, or the giant turtles which the luxons seem to abuse.**

**Note: This is my point of view as to how the war between Luxons and Kurzicks is going, however I do fight for the Kurzicks and believe this is the state at which the war between us is at.**

**Our Final hours**

Our instructor had made us march all the way here. "Preserving the discipline" or something. Echovald forest was completely silent now, no creature, no human, so going through there was the easy part of it. Now we were on the Jade Sea, however, and "Preserving the discipline" was becoming much, much harder for the officers.

We had been called upon as reinforcements for our brothers on the front lines. Finally, after two years sitting at Durheim Archives, receiving our gear from Vasburg just down the road, we had been taken into action. Whether we knew then or found out later what we would be coming to, we'd have probably turned tail and run.

"Flames," said captain Bard as we had reached our destination. "That and the stench of rotting corpses is all you'll find up at Kaanai Canyon." Of course, we didn't believe him, we thought that we were winning the war here and no "Luxon" would be able to stop us.

We entered our Base, fabricated with blue Kurzick banners torn to shreds so that our national symbol was barely recognisable. We had expected to see countless men under the massive, dome - shaped Gazebo that we were in, storing boxes of salvaged equipment from daring raids behind Luxon lines.

What we actually found was far different from that - what we hadn't expected. No-one. This was it - we weren't reinforcements anymore, we were the only soldiers fighting on our Kurzick lines... Bard had been right. Flames in our camps down by the gates to the battlefield ahead - rotting corpses lying there, with spears and arrows sticking out of them. It was like nothing we had seen before.

Well - we exaggerated that a bit - there was one soldier left, who hadn't seen us, as he peeled the Captain's insignia off a dead soldier propped up against a barrel of what looked horridly like blood, and stuck it on himself.

Before we had enough time to take in our surroundings a voice from above bellowed "HIT THE GROUND!" and before we knew it, massive rocks were hitting the cliff face around the Gazebo. We all dived for the floor, and I looked up into the face of a young soldier - he had been stood by the entrance we walked through, obviously we hadn't noticed him.

"Partly the reason _why _our base is built in an alcove on the cliff face," he said, walking to the front of it and peering out of the gaps between the cloth. "Luxons," he added in barely a whisper. "They can hardly hit a thing," he added, sighing and sitting by a table full of mouldy food.

It was embarassing, lying there, while he scanned all our faces as we lay there in terror. "You can get up, you know, the only thing you'll find dangerous here are the jadeite rocks falling from the ceiling," he said as a throwaway comment, taking a bite out of a very old looking cheese.

There was a sickening crash from up above, as if a scount tower had been hit and fallen sideways onto a few sharp rocks. The soldier looked upwards, at the ceiling of the Gazebo. "Everything alright up there?" he yelled. He began to frown after a few seconds.

"I'm... I'm okay," came the dazed reply after what felt like a minute. The soldier looked perfectly happy again, and began chewing on the cheese. I cast him a look of envy, that he could act like this while trebuchets launched massive boulders at the cliff face, while the Luxons were trying to kill us.

He obviously saw me, as he told me his name. "Richard. Richard Dixley," he said, and i gave a confused look. He knew I had only asked him for his rank. "Ranks mean shit up here on the battlefield, friend. It's watching eachother's backs you need to think about." It had been like he read my mind.

The Assault finally stopped about an hour later. It was now I had time to collect my thoughts. "What happened here?" seemed the most obvious thing out of my mouth. I gestured towards all the bodies, the torn banners, the ruined supplies, the bloody water. He looked at me almost apologetically, or sympathetically...

"The bloody Luxons reached the base is what. Their rangers were at such a range where firing through our windows was as effective as a sword at close quarters. They started to burn our camp down below..." I moved to look through the windows - pushing apart the cloth, I looked down the cliffside. "None made it out, however - best bloody victory all this war. Victor here was the one that got the good old base enchantment running - the one that kills every enemy inside the base, i suppose you've heard of it?" He pointed towards the man we'd seen peeling off the captain's insignia, who had retreated to the corner of the room where he rocked backwards and forwards in his chair.

We were familiar with it - we'd been told in basic training, that if, and only IF we made it to the enemy base, we were not to enter it, only besiege it until the enemy left. Most of the reinforcements that had arrived - there were only twenty of us that had come - had sat on whatever they could to listen to the story.

"That explains the corpses, then," I said, nodding towards the bodies behind. Richard snorted. At first I thought I didnt hear him right. "Sorry?" I turned to look him in the face, and frowned. What could possibly be funny in a moment like this? He seemed to be having a good time. he was... _smiling._

"That isn't the half of it," he whispered, barely audible. "arrows and spear throwers couldn't do this much damage - they'd need to know where they were aiming, for a start." I didn't see where he was going with this - I didn't see a Luxon corpse in the room, and he didn't mention Luxons making it up this far.

"There were..." he didn't seem to want to carry on. "There were... things," he carried on quietly. "What they were, I don't know. They came up here and just..." His face broke into what looked like a painful motion. Tears were leaking into his mouth.

"Things no ordinary person has seen," he continued, the soldiers moving closer now as his voice grew quieter. "Like hell itself rejected them... Demons from no place I have ever seen on the face of this continent... or any other..." he began to let out whimpers. The brave man from an hour ago, crying and cowering because of something he wouldn't mention? I had to know more.

"They weren't... not human... and I've seen pictures of Charr, and of trolls, and many others, and believe me, these were nothing like them... Someone seemed to be controlling them, too... his black armour, his black eyes... His raised above his head, as if he was raising the dead itself..." He had begun to cry even louder, what he said after barely audible.

So far, this hadn't gone according to plan. There was now approximately twenty - three of us here at the Kurzick base in Kaanai Canyon. We got nothing out of Richard in the following days. None of us seemed to want to do anything besides sit here, and wait for the best, like the war would fight itself. I had to take command.

on the third day, after having organised everybody into squads, removing the bodies and dousing the fires, Victor approached me. "There's something you need to know," He said in a grave voice. I gestured to the table and chairs for him to sit down. "One of our scouts finally returned, bringing news from outside of echovald forest - the war effort, Luxon numbers and everything," he began, his voice getting desperate.

"Slow down," I said - things just weren't registering in my head, I'd been awake for atleast seventy two hours. "We have scouts? who authorised this?"

"It's since before you were here, _sir,"_ He said as if I shouldn't be where I was. "Anyway, the news from outside. You see out there?" He nodded towards the enemy's base on the opposite canyon wall. "Out there is a force three times the size of what _should _be here," I moaned and raised my head to the ceiling, letting my hands fall onto my face.

"We also received news that the Imperial City was issuing for troops and willing civilians to join the war effort here." I could tell by his voice, that after he said this, He waited to see my reaction.

I finally broke the silence. "Is that supposed to be good news?" I said, sighing, already knowing what he was going to say.

"No. Some clever newspaper in the city told the public that the Luxons were the winning side, so, being the cowards they are, rushed to join the Luxon ranks. Their numbers swell while ours dwindle," he finished in a surrendered voice.

I looked into the corner of the room where Richard sat, staring into space. I wondered when he would do anything - I couldn't just order him to do something, what was there to be done? as my eyes lingered on him for a little longer, he sat bolt upright in his chair.

The room had suddenly gone cold. My breath rose in front of me in steam like Victor's and Richard's. I saw Richard's eyes dart towards the window. I followed them to where they were staring, somewhere off in the distance. I picked up the telescope and looked at the enemy base. A thick, blue mist had filled the valley, and it was almost impossible to see anything. "What are they doing, casting a spell of cold on us? hope to freeze us to death, is that it?"

"They think we have a huge army here aswell, it's the only reason they haven't charged our position - because they don't know we only have twenty three men!" shouted Victor as if he'd been telling me this over and over for the past half an hour.

"No... it's not that," I said, looking at one doorway out of the Luxon base in particular. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. There was a man, in Black armour with the darkest eyes you've ever seen. His staff, raised high above his head. I turned to look at Richard, who was white and pearly - it was like he'd just seen a Ghost. The mist began to fill the room. I moved further away from the window towards him, my breath still rising in clouds in front of my vision. "Richard?" I whispered. The fear could be heard in my voice.

Richard's whole body tensed as his eyes focused on something in the window behind me. "They're here."

A/N: All you Luxon idiots are free to critiscise my story if you want, and say how true it is, but this is how downhill I think the war is going for us Kurzicks.


	2. The end is Nigh?

**A/N:** okay, so this chapter is pretty short... I'm going to get to the point soon enough, don't worry ;)

**The end is nigh?**

I picked up my sword, from where it lay, a few feet away on the table. As i slowly turned to see the creature, the stench of something that had been dead for weeks reached my nostrils, The foul stench engulfing my lungs...

And there it was, a Skeletal creature poised on the stone balcony, waiting to strike. I felt the other two rustling behind me.

"What's your plan now, smart ass?" Victor's voice said from behind. I heard him grip his sword moments before he came to my side, waiting like me, for something to happen.

"It's got no head, so it can't hear or see us..." I observed, while Richard began to whimper from behind. "It must be sensitive to movement," I whispered, waving my hand, and as I did so, the creature poised, ready to attack.

"Brilliant. bloody brilliant," Victor said, as fear struck him. He waved his sword gently, and the creature turned in his direction.

"Victor, how many men are in the camp?" I began, trying to come up with a plan.

"None, sir. I sent them to the cave behind us, The same way we came in a few days ago," He said quickly.

"Good, That should make for a quick retreat... Richard, I need you to go and alert them, and I want you all to fall back to the Harvest temple. This may be the biggest island on the jade sea, but let's not think twice about surrendering it to save the others. We'll have a good view from there of what to do next. Now move!" I said, so quickly it had him confused. When he understood he ran as fast as he could into the cave…

"what about me, sir?" Victor said, gathering confidence that a plan finally coming together.

I tightened the grip on my sword, Bringing it in front of me to a defensive stance. "We're holding down the fort," I said, trying to believe what had just come out of my mouth.

Victor's mouth went dry so fast I swore I could have heard it. "Y- you know that this isn't going to be the only thing that attacks us, don't you?" He whimpered. Sure enough, moments later, the sound of Luxon infantry breaking into the camp below met their ears.

"I know. We're going to hold it long enough for the others to escape." I drew up my sword, and rushed the creature - Thrusting the blade out in front of me, I knocked it back over the balcony to the camp below.

We let out a sigh of relief. "See, it won't be that hard -" I began, yet the battle roars of the Luxons below met our ears. We looked at each other, and like we were thinking the exact same thing, we both pelted towards the entrance to the crevice in the cliff face.

As we ran through the dark, dank caves, hoping for signs of the exit, we heard the shuffling and shouting of the rest of the men ahead of us. The camp they had set up inside the cave held the smell of freshly burnt wood, as the fires had been extinguished and the gear gathered - it remained a blur as we rushed past. We felt our feet hitting higher ground as we ran up through the tunnel to the cave's mouth.

The rushing of Luxon infantry could be heard behind us. We protruded out into the daylight to meet piercingly fresh air, tinted with the smell of the sea, and the sound of waves crashing up on the shores.

There it was, The Harvest Temple… The last Kurzick outpost outside of Echovald, and one that should not see war or trifle, but remain a place of peace… Yet we had brought these things to its doors. sat in the middle of the ocean, connected by creaky bridges from the shoreline, it rose out of the water. Many of us stood in awe - we hadn't passed through here on the way to kanaai, we'd travelled a few miles west, through the small villages plaguing the shorelines - Myself included…


End file.
